BubbleStream

Becky Breed

Writing in Community

Synopsis

Writing in Community is a book of inspiration and encouragement for writers who want to reach deep within themselves and write to their fullest potential. There is magic in a successful writing group. This book helps writers tap into that magic, and with gentle wisdom and humor, experience unprecedented breakthroughs in creativity.

Author Biography

Becky's writing group has meant a lot to her. She loves the energy and synchronicity of using the generative process in the writing group to take her creativity to new heights. A longtime educator, poet and essayist, Becky draws the inspiration for her writing from the magic and wisdom of being present in the world. The strength and beauty of people continue to amaze her, and their guidance has been her best teacher. Her book, co-authored with Lucy Adkins, Writing in Community: Say Goodbye to Writer's Block and Transform Your Life, won the 2014 Silver Independent Publishers Award in Writing/Publishing. Visit www.writeincommunity.com to view her blog and find posts about the writing life, inspiring writing exercises, and more.

Author Insight

Writing What We Know

Sometimes writing comes to me sideways. I didn't know I was going to write about the muted light coming through the window when my father was dying, or the soft color of my daughter's eyes on her first day of kindergarten. My attention was on other things. But maybe it was the striking, singular beauty of a shaft of sunlight forcing its way through clouds on an early August morning that took me to my father's hospital bed. Or, when a child in a red coat turned to look at me in a doctor's office. Inspiration comes when I wake up to what's around me, seeing, touching and, yes, tasting, letting it all seep into me like I am an open vessel.

Book Excerpt

Writing in Community

Inspiration is what all writers long for—clarity coming in a flash of light, sudden insights, words flowing from the tips of our pens in such fast-flowing streams that the muscles in our fingers cannot move quickly enough to put them down. The word inspiration is derived from “inspire,” meaning to breathe in. We need to breathe in, in-spire, take the world in through our senses, through our very pores. As oxygen taken into our bodies keeps us alive, so does taking in the world through the senses give life to our writing. Wordsworth wrote about daffodils and about the beauty of the city of London on a foggy morning. Blake wrote about lambs and tigers and chimney sweeps. Emily Dickinson wrote about the buzzing of a fly. In those pieces, we feel the stirrings of their hearts in response to the joy and tragedy that is life. “Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown,” Claude Bernard said. Hence, we are admonished to “write what you know,” and so we do—we write about the collie we had in childhood, about crows, green beans, climbing trees, and plucking feathers from chickens. From these beginnings, the writing may take a turn and move on to greater things.